


Angels Don't Always Have Blue Eyes

by AnnCherie



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Denial of Feelings, F/M, and the usual, just brotp stuff, with unrequited feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-30 02:56:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18306773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnCherie/pseuds/AnnCherie
Summary: Fillory and Further brings them together but it isn't what keeps them together, not back then. An exploration of pre-Brakebills Quentin & Julia





	Angels Don't Always Have Blue Eyes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lint](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lint/gifts).



 

It doesn’t really matter how Quentin Coldwater met Julia Wicker in the scheme of things, all that mattered was that he no longer thought angels had blonde hair and blue eyes. (That would revert much later). 

 

Julia spent all of her time reading in her freshman year of high school... reading and answering every academic question correctly. The kids in their class didn’t like her back then. She was weird, bossy, and nerdy and all she wanted to do was talk about magical places and fantasy fiction instead of makeup or boys. The kind of nerdy fourteen year old girl that would take over the world one day, but was too busy now. Quentin thought this was admirable, even though he was far too shy to say anything in his corner of the shaded outside lunch tables. One night at home, after weeks of deliberation and trying not to spy on her (and failing), he begged his parents to buy him a copy of Fillory and Further. His father gave him an incredulous look at the idea of spending money on some children’s book for his teenage son, but his mom wanted to prove a point about being the better parent and so she went out and bought the whole series.

 

He would never have been prepared for how much it changed his life.

 

During lunch the next day he began reading in the library, opening the thick book with full pages and tiny print. The table of contents was interesting, chapter titles even more silly than those from Harry Potter. It wasn’t like there was anyone around to judge him and even if there was it wasn’t like he was in some high social position to fall from grace, but when he spotted Julia coming in with a world history textbook and a spiral bound notebook almost as big his face had heated up. Wondering if she would come over and talk to him, he tried desperately to begin reading so it didn’t look like he was just some boy trying to impress her. She didn’t come over anyway. By the second page Quentin never even noticed.

 

Once he was finally finished with the series a month later, Julia pounced. He wasn’t even sure how she knew that he had finished them… So  _ maybe _ he’d walked around with the books during classes, reading whenever he thought the teacher wouldn’t notice, but he’d never had anyone pay attention to him before. 

 

“What did you think?”

 

“They were cool,” Quentin said lamely as he turned bright red. Whether that was from being talked to or because he had a hard time saying what he wanted to say he wasn’t sure. Julia’s excited expression faltered, and he quickly continued. “I mean-- I mean I really liked that Jane got to lead the story because female characters don’t get that often, and there are so many complex ideas that Plover puts into these books, and his world building is amazing I mean the history between Lloria and Fillory alone--”

 

While he couldn’t stop himself from rambling, Julia couldn’t stop from listening and correcting some of what he said while smiling widely. They were inseparable after that, so peculiar now that just taste in books had caused such closeness.

 

^^

 

Julia had never liked Quentin’s mother. Quentin had returned the favor by not liking hers either, but that wasn’t too bad because Julia didn’t like hers much anyway. Quentin still loved his. Well, Julia thought, it was more that Quentin  _ wanted _ to love her. Kinda hard to love someone who constantly told you off for breaking things and fixing them all at the same time.  _ You broke my cigarette dish. You better fix your room. You broke your dad’s plane. Fix the computer my program froze. You broke your dad and I, why couldn’t you keep quiet about Molly? _

 

The summer between their freshman and sophomore year had been cruel to Quentin, and more often than not he spent every last minute after school and between having to go home at her house. Julia had loved it, no matter how much her college junior sister teased her about both of them having crushes on each other at the dinner table. Her mother had pursed her lips before launching into a lecture on how Julia better not let a boy distract her from her future. Her father had loudly set his whiskey glass down on the table and told her mother to shut up. Julia wasn’t sure whether he was defending her or not, she was never sure anymore. How could she tell when the whiskey never left his hand between morning to night?

 

When her family splits apart, she sobs into Quentin’s shoulders. He tries to tell her that her dad will get better, that her mom will change her mind eventually, and that her sister will move back in when the dust settles, but they both know better.

 

Quentin loses his mother to his mother’s secret girlfriend not even a full month later.

 

Suddenly they weren’t just friends. They were the only child in a single parent household, trying desperately to be anything other than their parents wanted. Coincidentally, that involved diving further and further into Fillory.

 

^^

 

Sure, at fifteen it was a little weird to draw on the bottom of a table in crayon, but they had both been high for the first time and it had seemed like the best plan in the world. It wasn’t the weed that was talking when they planned their adventures, though. Only a day after they often referred to each other as Jane and Martin, confusing their new classmates at the beginning of sophomore year. Puzzling the other teenagers who thought they were outcasts made the inside joke even more special, though.

 

Somewhere along the line, that started to fade.

 

At first, it’s subtle. Julia is asked out by some boy who wants to take her to the spring formal, because she’s becoming more and more pretty to people other than Quentin. She recounts the guy’s proposition to Quentin with embarrassment and feigned distaste, but he can tell that she’s happy underneath it all. Quentin, with all the fake courage and selflessness he could possibly muster, says she should go with the boy. Julia laughs awkwardly, shakes her head, and changes the subject to whether or not he thought they could pass of Fillory fanfiction as an English writing project.

 

When they’re sixteen by Sophomore year, things are less subtle.

 

Surprisingly enough, to Quentin at least, he also gets asked out for Homecoming. An actor in the lead school drama, no less, and even though he can’t stand the idea of dancing with someone other than Julia, she convinces him to say yes so they can double date. Quentin would rather burn his entire Fillory and Further collection than watch her be flirted with by someone else, but she’s looking at him with those eyes and he tells himself that at least she wants him there in the first place. That and if he’s too afraid to do it himself, he didn’t get to decide no one else could either.

 

Quentin gets his first  _ real _ kiss. Julia gets pressured by a guy for the first time. Quentin punches someone for the first time as well, and before he can get his first concussion, some kid named James steps in and finishes the fight. In the midst of Julia and Quentin making sure the other was okay, both shaken up, Julia thanks James and Quentin is heartbroken by the look in her eyes.

 

James becomes their friend.

 

It’s not a bad thing, really, because he’s not a dick like other guys their age. The only problem is he’s much more popular than Julia or Quentin and now people are paying attention to them too.

 

^^

 

“He’s in love with you!” James had half yelled at Julia when she didn’t want to go to prom without Quentin in their group.

 

She knew that. She wasn’t oblivious. “James--,”

 

“No, Julia.”

 

“Don’t make me choose between you two.” she told him. The strength behind her quiet statement wasn’t kind. It was a clear warning, even though she didn’t want it to be. She wanted someone other than Quentin in her life, sure, but there wasn’t anything she would choose over him.

 

James scoffed. “Are you in love with him too?”

 

“If you’re going to be jealous of my best friend because he’s a guy, then we’re done.” Julia replied, diverting the question that she couldn’t answer. 

 

There was something deeper between her and Quentin that she wasn’t sure anyone else could understand. Friends didn’t quite fit, did they? Family might have been close, but not after the pain they both experienced from blood relatives. Maybe they could have been boyfriend or girlfriend, if Julia had allowed it, but romance wasn’t safe with someone you cared so much about.

 

James didn’t talk to her for a week. Then one day he was sitting with them again at their lunch table, talking to Quentin about some video game that they both liked, and Julia found his hand in hers.

 

^^

 

Seventeen is when things become dark. Quentin thought it probably should have before then. Maybe it’s due to visiting his mother and Molly for a summer month, but by the week he’s back to his dad’s he can’t even get out of bed. If things were normal, he’d have been hungry four days ago when he last stopped eating. Thirsty, too. Maybe tired of the darkness that hung in his room. It wasn’t the fault of his closed blinds, though. It’s the unforgiving racing thoughts that keep speeding around in his mind so quickly that he has to sleep just to escape them.  _ You aren’t normal. You’re ugly. Even your best friend wants someone else. You couldn’t keep your parents together. You ruined their lives. Your dad can’t stand you. Your mom knows everything you break. You aren’t even loved by your own mother. _

 

They’re disjointed, sure, but they’re all encompassing. He doesn’t care when his dad talks through his door, or even yells after the second day. He doesn’t care when his phone keeps ringing and he’s missing calls from his mother or James or even Julia. None of it  _ matters _ .

 

Julia is the one who breaks into his room by day number five. She literally unscrews his doorknob and looks a little proud of herself in the brief second before she takes in the scene. If it weren’t for her and her pleading and her promises that she’d never let the hospital keep him, he’d probably be dead not long after.

 

When he gets out, she barely lets him out of her sight. She wasn’t allowed to visit him in the psych ward as a minor, but she makes up for every lost moment by texting him on the hour or staying over at his house so long that she ends up falling asleep in his bed. James visits too, although his expressions vary from pity to kindness to something Quentin almost thinks could be jealousy. It always fades away from James’ face the second Quentin catches it, though, so he tells himself it’s a figment of his imagination.

 

^^

 

They come up on graduation. Quentin had already spent a few weeks in the hospital during school and his brain threatens him with more. Julia tells him that it isn’t his fault, but he swears she looks more strained each time. He’s determined to pull away and go to a college far from here where he can self-destruct on his own, but Julia catches the email notifications from out of state colleges on his phone one day, and looks up at him. She’s silent for a moment, before it gives way to angry hurt.

 

“What the fuck?” she asked as they sat at their lunch table. “You’re going to leave me?”

 

Quentin wants to tell her it isn’t fucking about her, but that would be 90% of a lie. It feels like it’s always been about her ever since they met four years ago. “Jules--,”

 

“Don’t ‘Jules’ me,” she snapped.

 

He gave a frustrated huff as he stared at the ceiling for a moment so he didn’t let his full emotion show or fill his eyes with tears. Tenuously, he looks back down at her. “I’m not going to stay your shadow forever.”

 

Pursing her lips wasn’t enough. She threw up her hands as well, and Quentin was glad that James wasn’t here due to sports practice. “You’re not my shadow.” 

 

“God, Julia, be real for one second.” He told her, his own anger rising.

 

“I am, Quentin.” she replied, her voice going low in response. They were a constant push and pull. “You’re not my shadow, you’re my fucking sun.”

 

Breathing became impossible for him for a second.

 

“No one knows me like you do, okay? You were there when my dad was still around, you got me through him being who he was and how he left… you’re constantly showing me how to be strong and keep fighting despite everything.”

 

Tears came to his eyes this time, and he found his hands very interesting when it was too hard to dare and watch her express something more than just friendship but just sly of the romance he desperately craved sometimes.

 

“Don’t leave me.” She pleaded.

 

And he couldn’t. Even if it meant living in an apartment with her after graduation, or going to the same college, or suffering through the college parties that she and James threw more than he liked. Even if it meant watching her pull away from Fillory, the one thing that had connected them in a way that James couldn’t be apart of. 

 

Even when he had to deal with her tucking his hair behid his ear and telling him that she was the angel protecting his future.


End file.
